


Kotodama

by Fweeble



Series: I Wanna Be Your Knight [1]
Category: Ao no Exorcist | Blue Exorcist
Genre: Canon Divergence, F/M, M/M, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-05
Updated: 2016-05-05
Packaged: 2018-06-06 11:04:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6751441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fweeble/pseuds/Fweeble
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bon looks like a wild child. He’s fire and passion, untamed and raging. </p><p>He’s not wild.</p><p>Alternatively: How Rin slowly falls in love with Bon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kotodama

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cupofbrouhaha](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cupofbrouhaha/gifts).



> For my dearest hyung, [Frey](http://freykugel.tumblr.com/). 
> 
> I started writing this for you about two years ago, goodness gracious.
> 
> It's so hard writing in a new fandom. The children in AoEx are just so emotional. I'm sorry if I don't have them down pat. ; 3; 
> 
>  
> 
> Mentioned unrequited RinShiemi and IzumoRin. I tried to pack in as many of your favorite things as I could. <3

It starts because they have just left Kyoto and, even if their friendship is mended, maybe even better than it was before, Rin still feels uneasy. It isn’t entirely a lie, either, since his grades are amazing in all the ways no one wants them to be, but that doesn’t mean he approaches Suguro without ulterior motives.  
  
“So, uh, I’m kind of failing spectacularly at math, modern Japanese, history, and sort of chemistry too, and I was wondering,” he grins as guilelessly as he can as he leans in expectantly. “Study group? I’ll pay you with lunch.”  
  
Suguro pulls a face and pushes Rin away, mutters something about goddamn personal space, then growls, “No.”  
  
“ _C’mmon_. I’ll make your favorites.”  
  
Konekomaru cuts in before Suguro can turn him down again, smile soft and earnest, “You can come over on Sundays. As long as there’s nothing cram school related, we have a study session every week.”  
  
“Thanks, Konekomaru!” Rin throws himself around Konekomaru, enthusiastically pets the other boy’s shaved head, and laughs when the smaller boy swats at his hands, disgruntled but smiling still. “I’ll make some lunch for you, too.”  
  
“What about me?” Shima whines, hands thumping against the table. “Are you just going to ignore me? That’s my room too, ya know! I’m part of that study session!”  
  
“And what exactly do you do while Konekomaru and I are studying?” Suguro rolls his eyes and peels the overeager half-demon off Konekomaru. “You lie in bed and flip through your gravure magazines.”  
  
“And sometimes manga,” Shima offers helpfully.  
  
“This isn’t a charity,” Rin says primly. “It’s food in exchange for tutoring.” He talks over Suguro’s very adamant protests that he had (not) agreed to a study session; there would be no actual _tutoring_. “You can have instant ramen.”  
  
“I’ll lend you my naughty manga.”  
  
Rin considers it.  
  
“Shima-san,” Konekomaru sighs, “please at least _attempt_ to restrain your earthly desires.”   
 

 

 

* * *

  

Suguro Ryuuji looks like a wild child, but the only thing wild about him is his temper.  
  
“What’s this?” Rin asks as he pokes around Suguro’s rather impressive collection of CDs. So far he has found instrumentals, blues, jazz, rock, and one CD that he thinks is in Italian. At the very least, Suguro is open to the idea of foreign music, Rin muses as he turns over the case and eyes the colorful letters in bold print. There’s no heavy metal, nothing with covers that suggest the singer is wailing about misery, but there’s a rap album, which Rin suspects reminds Suguro a bit of sutras.  
  
“Oi,” Suguro says from the table, irritable and impatient. “You came to study, right? Quit poking around my stuff!” He shoots a look at Konekomaru, and they share what can only be described as silent communication.  
  
Rin wants that. He wants to develop a friendship so deep that sometimes, words aren’t needed.  
  
He’d like that with Suguro, with Konekomaru. Even Shima.  
  
He’d like to have that with everyone in the cram class.  
  
“Right!” he says as he takes his seat next to Suguro. 

 

* * *

  
  
Rin wears the clip Suguro gave him when he studies.  
  
Suguro never says anything.  
  
“Thanks again,” Rin says when he sees Suguro staring at him for the third time that study session. “For this, I mean. I use it all the time.”  
  
Suguro mumbles “You’re welcome” and doesn’t look at Rin, or the clip, again for the rest of the day.

 

 

 

* * *

 

Konekomaru is sick.  
  
Suguro cancels their study session, ostensibly because he doesn’t want to interfere with Konekomaru’s rest.  
  
It’s such bullshit. After all, they can study in Rin’s room if disturbing Konekomaru was really the issue.

It’s such bullshit, and Rin can’t help but smile when he shows up at their dorm room loaded with food. “Don’t be an ass, let me in. It’s not heavy, but the pot is a bit precarious, and I’d rather have the chicken soup in Konekomaru and not on the floor.”  
  
Suguro sniffs the pot he relieves from Rin’s worrying leaning tower and frowns. “This smells… herbal.”  
  
“Yeah, well,” Rin is rooting through the shared fridge in the corner of the room, trying to determine what can last a few hours unrefrigerated and what can’t so he can store the tupperware containers filled with food. He contemplates an uncovered plate of chicken with disappointment— dry and defiled with stray flavors, he mourns. Apparently Myou Dha didn’t teach their followers how to properly store food. He takes out the chicken and replaces it with a container of freshly pickled vegetables. “The internet said it was good at… strengthening the immune system? Or something. It’s my first time making it— doesn’t taste too bad, at least?” He finally makes enough room for congee cooked in chicken stock and slots it in between the pickles and two bottles of Pocari Sweat. “That reminds me, Shiemi wishes Konekomaru well. She wanted to come visit, but she’s watching the shop for her mom.”  
  
Suguro continues to frown at the pot. “The herbs are from Moriyama?”  
  
“Yeah. Wasn’t really sure where to get them.”  
  
After a moment, Suguro nods slowly and places the soup on the table.  
  
“Where’s Shima?”  
  
“He’s buying medicine. I hadn’t realized how low we were until last night,” Suguro says as he removes the wet cloth from Konekomaru’s forehead and replaces it with his own hand. He clicks his tongue. “Still high.” He wets the cloth again, wrings out excess water and carefully lays it across Konekomaru’s forehead.  
  
Shiro used to do that, too. He used to sit by Yukio’s bedside whenever he fell ill, used to keep vigil by his son as he replaced warm, wet cloth with cool ones. Rin remembers crawling into bed with his sick brother, wrapping himself around the small, shivering body and the tiny curl of fear that always rose when he looked at Yukio’s face, exhausted and miserable. It was scary, this invisible thing that caused his baby brother so much pain, something he couldn’t defeat with punches and bites and angry kicks to the stomach.

Colds aren’t as terrifying now as they were to him then. He realizes that they are common, that people catch them from time to time and, usually, they aren’t threatening, let alone fatal.  
  
But he watches Suguro tend to a sleeping, flushed Konekomaru, and feels his heart clench. He thinks of Shiro, of the days so long ago and gone, of a Yukio who used to chase after him, smile large and all-encompassing. He thinks of the days when he had his entire family and they were whole.  
  
“Can I stay?”  
  
“What?” Suguro scowls from his seat by Konekomaru’s bed. “I told you, I don’t want to disturb Konekomaru.” He backpedals after a heartbeat, runs a hand through unstyled hair, and sighs. “Look, thanks for the food. I...We really appreciate it. But…” He looks away from Rin, looks at the bed.  
  
“That’s not…” Rin feels frustrated with himself. He doesn’t want to return to his room, to look at how empty it is without Yukio, or at a Yukio who isn’t the little boy who used to chase after him, calling his name. He doesn’t want to be alone when he feels so heartbreakingly lonely all of a sudden, bereft of the tenderness of family he sees in Suguro and Konekomaru. He can’t go to Shiemi, who is busy, or Kamiki, who holds him at an arm’s length at best. Takara and Shura are out of the question entirely, and Rin just _needs_.  
  
Suguro seems to sense something, maybe in the taut lines of Rin’s body, and sighs again. “Keep your voice down. Go back to your place and pick up your homework. If you’re gonna stay, you’re at least going to be productive.”  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Rin stares at his math homework until he goes cross-eyed. He looks at the x’s and y’s and the log’s and the sine’s and feels defeated before even beginning. He knows how to add numbers, how to subtract, multiply, divide. That’s all he needs to know, he thinks sourly as he looks at his hastily scrawled notes and how he has fifteen more problems to finish after this one.  
  
He lays his head on the table, makes angry, frustrated noises, and Suguro kicks his back, still stationed by Konekomaru’s bedside. From across the room, Rin hears Shima smother a laugh into his pillow.  
  
Irritated, Rin falls back onto the floor, spread eagled, and stares at the ceiling.  
  
He counts the tiles on the ceiling, connects speckled dots together to make pictures of dragons and tigers and griffons. Sometime between finishing a long, sprawling eastern dragon and starting a picture of Nii-chan, Konekomaru wakes up and they eat the soup Rin brought. After Konekomaru settles back into bed, sweat wiped and clothes fresh, Suguro starts reciting sutra as he reads his history textbook.  
  
Full and exhausted from math, Rin falls asleep like that on their floor, listening to Suguro’s soft voice and the way he carefully rolls his consonants.

 

 

 

* * *

 

Suguro is quieter after Inari, more subdued.  
  
It’s a different sort of quiet than what had hung over Suguro during the train ride to Inari, more lost than despairing. Rin doesn’t know what to say this time. There probably isn’t anything he can say.  
  
If Yukio had walked away like Shima had, Rin doesn’t know if he could recover.  
  
Suguro is quiet and pensive, and Rin finds himself whipping himself into a storm of stupidity, desperate to fix things. Everywhere he looks, he sees his friends disheartened, hurt by the absence of Shima and his parting words.  
  
He tells himself he will do anything to make Shiemi smile like she always does, a beautiful smile that could call forth spring in the cold emptiness of winter. He will do anything to make Kamiki feel safe, to give her the trust and security she needs, a family she yearns for. He will do anything to rebuild the broken pieces of faith and confidence Konekomaru had started to nurture after Kyoto, but had been shattered in Inari. He will do anything to ease the burden he sees his brother sagging under, the secrets he refuses to share.  
  
Rin thinks he’s going mad.  
  
He puts on a pink wig and collects his thoughts in front of the bathroom mirror.  
  
_This is for everyone_ , he tells himself as his reflection stares back at him, smiling. Manic.  
  
They aren’t broken, he tells himself. They can be fixed.  
  
Shima Renzou hasn’t broken them.

 

 

 

* * *

 

It’s a Sunday morning and his fridge had been distressingly empty when he checked it the night before, so Rin drags himself out of his warm cocoon in order to get some early morning shopping in before the study session.  
  
What he doesn’t expect, on his trek to the grocery store, is to see Suguro and Shima jogging toward him.  
  
Suguro nods at him as he passes while Shima stops, all smiles and laughter. “Hey! Didn’t expect to see you up so early!”  
  
“Groceries,” he says, staring at Shima. The only thing stranger than Rin waking up early is Shima doing so. “What’re you doing?”  
  
Shima gestures at himself, at the t-shirt, track pants, and sneakers, at the copious amount of sweat. “What does it look like? Exercising. Gotta get fit and keep fit. A spy’s duty, after all.”  
  
Rin stares more.  
  
“That Bon, though,” Shima whines as he shifts his stance and stretches a leg. “He’s so cold. Didn’t even stop to say hi. And did you know he likes to speed up so he can ditch me?”  
  
Everyone is still reeling from the fallout of Inari, of Kamiki’s kidnapping, of Shima’s betrayal and reveal, his redemption, or lack of it. Rin doesn’t understand how Shima can pick things up again as if nothing had happened, but he thinks maybe accepting things for what they are is part of what being friends means.  
  
“Yeah,” he says as agreeably as he can. “Cold.”  
  
He thinks of how nothing about Suguro can be described as cold.  
  
Suguro is fire, raging and passionate, uncontrolled and consuming.

 

 

 

* * *

 

Kamiki corners him one day and says, cool as she can, “Thanks. You know. For coming.”  
  
She is red and fidgety, and Rin exclaims, “Of course. We’re friends!”  
  
It’s Kamiki so he expects the bluster, the way she rears back and sputters something that isn’t quite a denial. What he doesn’t expect is the sudden flash of emotion that crosses her face before it’s covered by her flushed face and flippant words.  
  
He must have misread it.  
  
There’s no reason why his words would hurt her.

Rin lays in bed that night, unable to puzzle out the reason why.

 

 

 

* * *

 

A few days later, Suguro finds him during the lunch break before Shiemi meets him like she always does, Shima and Konekomaru suspiciously missing.

“Look,” Suguro says when he stops by the water fountain. “You've seemed...troubled lately. I think there's something you have to talk about?”  
  
“I thought you were making an honest effort to stop fussing over others.” He bites his tongue before he can continue. Guilt floods through him as dark red rises up Suguro’s neck, bleeds into his face.

“Nevermind, then,” Suguro spits, spinning on his heel. “Stew in your own juices!”  
  
“No!” He grabs Suguro’s hand, feels entirely like the douchebag he probably is. “Wait, just… I’m sorry.” It doesn’t erase Suguro’s scowl, but he waits patiently for Rin to continue. “I think… I’ve upset Kamiki.” Now it’s his turn for his face to heat up, embarrassment overwhelming as Suguro eyes him strangely.  
  
“She’s been acting the same. You’re the one who’s been acting strangely.”  
  
Rin fumbles for the right words. Kamiki has been the same, yes, but the more he runs the scene through his mind the more convinced he is that he didn’t misread the hurt. He can’t stop thinking about it.  
  
“You’re right,” he allows after a moment. It drives him to distraction, knowing he hurt his friend and he doesn’t even know how or why. He needs to know so he doesn’t do it again. “Look… I don’t even know…”  
  
Suguro seems to connect dots that Rin hasn’t, and it bothers him if his face is anything to go by.  
  
“Okay,” he says slowly, eyeing Rin like he’s Typhoid Mary.

 

 

 

* * *

  

Shima looks at him and smiles, cool and easy.  
  
“Fallen for the princess, huh?”  
  
Rin starts, drops his hand from his hair, from the clip he had been fiddling with. “Huh?”

It’s only the two of them in the room. Suguro is off somewhere, doing something, Shima had said with a wave of his hand, possibly with Okumura-sensei. Or not. Konekomaru is at school, discussing coding with a classmate in one of the computer labs.  
  
Rin hasn’t been alone with Shima in a while. Not since Inari, and not even before then, he thinks. Other than the chance meeting that one Sunday morning, it has always been in groups. It feels strained, being alone with Shima, and he doesn’t know if it’s the strangeness of it all, how new and foreign it is, or if it’s the lingering doubts that no amount of flash and smoke from Mephisto can magic away.  
  
“That’s fine,” Shima sings, twirling a pen between his fingers. “You be the white knight; I’ll be the black.” He locks eyes with Rin, lets his grin grow wider, lets it take on a heavier, sharper edge. “It suits us, either way. The heroic bastard of Satan and the spy who once stood by the princess’ side.”  
  
Rin frowns, runs restless hands through rumpled hair, dislodges the clip he can’t stop touching, and sets it carefully aside on the table. “Since when were you ever by Shiemi’s side?” He gives up on all pretense of completing his homework and settles on flicking bits of eraser at Shima. “Pervert,” he adds, because he feels it’s important to get facts straight, especially when Shima gets cryptic and starts speaking in riddles. He’s a spy, a double spy, even. Maybe a triple, quadruple, whatever-ple agent, and, lately, he has taken to cheshire cat smiles and loaded words. Rin has come to the conclusion that while Kamiki Izumo may be descended from a fox god, Shima Renzou is probably the incarnation of a tanuki.  
  
“Aaaah, Shiemi-san,” Shima sighs dreamily as he spins his chair in circles. “And Izumo-chan, too! That trip to the beach was so nice, wasn’t it~?”  
  
It still brings dark, muddled feelings to the surface, the thought of anyone looking at Shiemi and thinking of her like _that_ , that precocious surge of anger that anyone would dare to look at what was his, a child staking his claim on his favorite toy. He tries to tamp it down, flicks more bits of ruined eraser at Shima. _Left eye, ten points_. He keeps score as he says, “Yeah, very nice.” He finds it difficult to think of that time, before when everything seemed so simple. He liked Shiemi, he had friends, his _first_ friends. He had people who liked him, who trusted him, and in whom he could trust as well. He looks at Shima and wonders— who are you really?  
  
“Still don’t trust me, huh?” Shima twirls some more on his chair, balances a pen on his puckered lips, as Rin watches with questions racing through his head.  
  
He remembers Suguro, his anguished declaration that he’d kill Shima, and then himself too. No matter what he had said when Shima returned, those words, said with anger and sorrow, had been heartfelt. Suguro’s voice had shook when he called out, when he had asked, “Is it my fault?”  
  
“Hey,” Rin says after he manages to make a two-pointer with his eraser shavings. “Is all this worth it?” He tries to keep things casual, voice light and curious. He misses his next shot at Shima, but he attributes that to the open window and a stray gust of wind, and not an unsteady hand.  
  
“Well, why not?” The smile is back, heavy and oppressive. “It’s fun.”  
  
Rin doesn’t understand what could be fun about hurting the people around him, the people who care about him. Rin doesn’t understand what could be fun about holding the people he cares about at arm’s length, lying to them every time he opened his mouth. Rin doesn’t understand _Shima_ , and the way the words fall from his lips like they’re the truth, easy and unburdened.  
  
“You are actual trash,” Rin says emphatically. “Konekomaru was right to sweep you out the door.”  
  
“Rude. I actually wasn’t swept _out_ the door, you know.” 

 

 

 

* * *

  

“Please, make me your disciple!”  
  
Rin can’t look away.  
  
Suguro, tall and proud, is on his knees, head bent towards the floor. Pride, dignity, things that Suguro has always held in high regard, things that have always been his undoing, are what he is offering. This isn’t the Suguro he knows, he thinks faintly as Lightning laughs. This is what Suguro has been carrying around since Inari, the silent thing that has had Suguro off-center for months.  
  
“Have you gone crazy?!” The words fall from his lips before he can stop them.  
  
Suguro has no control over his temper and Rin has no brain-to-mouth filter. Suguro will screech and smack him upside the head, and Rin will be equal parts apologetic and cheeky, just like always. Because this is Suguro and he’s Rin and whatever Suguro has carried with him from Inari doesn’t change that.  
  
  
  
  
It rolls off Suguro like water.  
  
This isn’t the Suguro he knows.

 

“They called me the _kaname_ ,” Suguro whispers after they leave. “They said I was the rivet that held everything together.”

_What am I supposed to do now?  
  
_

There’s nothing Rin can say to that. 

 

 

 

* * *

 

When Suguro says he has fallen for Lightning, Rin feels his heart drop, sudden and disorienting. Suguro can’t put everything into words, but Rin can see his conviction, can feel how earnest he is. He says he wants to try putting someone else above him, to step down from the pedestal he and Myou Dha has kept him on. So Rin supports Suguro like the way friends should.  
  
Suguro says Lightning has things that he doesn’t have, has qualities that he is chasing after.  
  
It’s impossible for Rin not to think of Suguro the other day, of how his seams started to show and how clearly they were unraveling. He remembers the desperation that dripped from every word, how he bellowed like a wounded animal. Suguro is lost, Rin realizes, and maybe he had wandered off his path earlier than Inari, that maybe Inari had just pulled him deeper down that path.  
  
Ambition. That was the word Suguro had used. Ambition.  
  
Dream. That’s what he had meant. Suguro’s dream was to reunite his family, to fix what Satan and the Blue Night had left broken.  
  
But Shima has walked down a path that Suguro cannot follow, and it leads away from Myou Dha, from family, and from Suguro’s dream. His father has stayed at home in the family ryokan and has not taken up the mantle as the head of the order in more than just name. Konekomaru has pried open Suguro’s eyes, has forced him to acknowledge and accept that his dreams are his, not anyone else’s, and that everyone has their own path to walk, even if that means they walk it alone.  
  
Suguro ran on motivation, driven by his dream.  
  
Without it, he’s lost, Rin realizes. Suguro didn’t bring something with him from Inari— he had left a part of himself behind.  
  
He doesn’t know this Suguro, because Suguro is fire and passion, and a Suguro without dreams is flickering embers, fighting to stay lit.  
  
He supports Suguro with gusto, determined to keep what remains alive, unwilling to see that light extinguished, smothered by life and the realities that come with it.

 

  
But then Suguro doesn’t hand Lightning Kurikara when he has the chance, and he doesn’t back down no matter what Lightning says, and Rin sees the fire in Suguro, still raging, and he realizes that the Suguro he knows has always been in front of him.  
  
Suguro fights like he’s drowning, fights like the world is on his shoulders and he will do anything, _anything_ , to win. He finds card after card, throws out a hand here to reach a card, a leg there to reach another; he will not be stopped. Even in the cursed box, Rin finds himself in awe, is reminded with each successive card that Suguro is freaking amazing and dedicated, and Suguro is one of the coolest people he knows.  
  
“Good for you, Suguro! Give it your all!” he says when Lightning finally accepts Suguro as his disciple.

  
This time, he means it. 

 

 

 

* * *

  

Nothing about Suguro is wild except his temper and his passion.  
  
And that’s the way it should always be.

 

 

 

* * *

  

They’re both burning with embarrassment; Rin can feel it, can see it in the deep flush across Shiemi’s cheeks. Even cherry red, she's cute, he thinks. She always makes his heart flutter, and Rin has lost count of the number of nights he spent dreaming of her smile, the number of lectures has fallen on deaf ears because he imagines a future where Shiemi returns his affections, where she likes him more than Yukio.  
  
But then she says she likes both of them like friends, is flustered beyond comprehension when he screeches, voice high and reedy, “...You’re not in love with either of us?!”  
  
“O-of course not!” she exclaims. Rin can hear her heart racing, thinks it’s a contender for first place in this competition despite his own heart’s furious tempo. “I’m too young for that!”  
  
His heart stutters when she realizes what his ‘like’ meant, and there’s a sudden tug at his heart, and for a moment Rin thinks it’s the kohltars. That, maybe, they’ve figured a way into his chest and have started playing with it, like a puppy worrying its favorite chew toy.  
  
Memories of Kyoto come flooding back, of Shiemi’s earnest promise to always be his friend. _Of course_ , he thinks. _Of course_.  
  
The feeling of his sinking heart in Kyoto, the way Shiemi’s green eyes had sparkled, guileless.  
  
_Of course_ , he thinks again, remembering Kamiki and the hurt that had flickered across her face. _Of course._  

 

 

 

* * *

 

It’s awkward in class afterwards.  
  
Five parts awkwardness post-Shiemi confession, two parts unresolved and unspoken feelings between himself and Kamiki, two parts the return of Shura and the fact that Lightning is still teaching her classes, Suguro clearly unsure if he is toeing the line between loyalty for Shura, who had fought alongside them in Kyoto, and Lightning, his master, and one part the fact Rin knows Shura’s secrets and he’s sure that that’s something she would kill to keep between herself and the dead.  
  
It’s awkward, and he sits in class with Shiemi who smiles and greets him, because she’s sweet and kind, and that just makes everything ache all the more. She’s all fluttering hands and stuttering, face bright and flushed, and Rin can feel the intense heat of Kamiki’s gaze burning into his back.  
  
He looks at Suguro and mouths, “Meet me after class?”  
  
Shima and Konekomaru catch his gaze, and Shima throws a thumbs up and a wink, accepting the invitation for Suguro.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
After class, when everyone has filtered out and Shima and Konekomaru are waiting on the other side of the door, Rin looks to Suguro and takes a deep, calming breath.  
  
“You have to help me,” he croaks. “I don’t know what to do.”  
  
Suguro cocks his head to one side, brow furrowed. “What is it?”  
  
“Shiemi,” he begins. “I, well, things… happened. And now I know— Kamiki… she likes me— or, at least, I’m pretty sure she does—and I don’t know if I should say anything and-”  
  
“Okumura, wai— hold it. Just— just...stop.” Suguro is holding his head in one hand, looking for the world like a tortured martyr. “I don’t… Talk to Shima about things like this. Talk to _sensei_ about this. Don’t— Don’t talk to _me_ about this.”  
  
_I don’t want to talk to them_ , he means to say. _I don’t even want to talk to Konekomaru. I want **your** help._  
  
But Suguro looks awful, and Rin instead says, “Sorry, I didn’t realize you were allergic to love talk. I figured you’d have experience, considering you’re mister popular.”  
  
Rin can see the wheels turning in Suguro’s head, can see him settle on the memory of the festival, the days leading up to it, the blushing girls that had asked him to the dance, and the ones that have come after, confessing their love.  
  
“I’m not— not _allergic_ ,” Suguro says. “Anyways, I have to organize Master’s tomes so… I have to go. Sorry.”  
  
They both acknowledge the excuse for the escape that it is. Rin lets him abscond and heroically does not contemplate why this calls forth a dull ache like Shiemi’s words had when he realized she could never love him the same way he did.

 

 

 

* * *

 

Shima mourns the death of Suguro’s hair, had held a ceremony over the shorn locks and chanted sutras for their passing. He shows up the next day at class with a dark imprint shaped like Suguro's fist on his right cheek, and he smiles beatifically despite it, mouthing ‘worth it’ when Kamiki looks at him like he’s scum stuck to the bottom of her shoes.  
  
Suguro looks…  
  
Refreshing.  
  
Rin’s fingers twitch. He thinks he’d like to run his fingers along the short hairs along the nape of Suguro’s neck, to learn the way the bristles would feel beneath his fingertips.  
  
It’s a sudden, overwhelming feeling that passes quickly, and Rin is left confused and troubled.  
  
The last of it washes away, overwhelmed by the torrent of confusion that overtakes him when Suguro rises from his seat after Shiemi arrives and leads her to the back of the classroom and they draw in close. Their heads are bent towards each other, and Shiemi looks dainty and small juxtaposed against Suguro’s large and sturdy frame. They look good together, he realizes, and the thought of it runs in endless circles in his head.  
  
They speak in hushed whispers and a package exchanges hands.  
  
Shiemi opens it, glows with joy when she sees what’s in it. She holds Suguro’s hands and chatters excitedly. Suguro smiles, small and fond, and pats her head gently.  
  
No wonder Suguro didn’t want to talk about it, something small and petty in Rin thinks.  
  
Except Suguro catches his gaze and rolls his eyes.  
  
“Don’t be stupid,” he says after reaching Rin and the desk he shares with Shiemi. “I gave her my old clips. I can’t use them anymore with… Well, with this.” He gestures at his hair and raises an eyebrow.  
  
“Oh.” Rin feels stupid.  
  
“Rin!” Shiemi says gleefully as she rushes over, bunny clip in one hand, package in the other. “Look at these! They’re so cute!”  
  
Suguro looks away, red, and makes a beeline toward his table.  
  
Shima shrieks with laughter. 

 

 

 

* * *

  

The exorcist qualifications come and pass, and some of them pass their exams with flying colors while others barely squeak by and take it as a win.  
  
“I can’t believe we passed,” Konekomaru sighs, collapsed in his chair, utterly unlike himself and all loose limbs.  
  
“We’re just that awesome,” Shima says, laughing.  
  
Suguro mutters something, turns a pen over and over in his hands. “Or maybe the True Cross Order is that desperate for fresh blood.”  
  
Rin thinks of how haggard Yukio looks these days, how he has lost weight despite the bento lunches Rin packs for him every day. Busy, busy, busy; always so busy.  
  
_Yeah_ , Rin agrees silently. _The Order’s drowning, and they’re willing to take in anyone who can keep them afloat.  
_

 

 

 

* * *

 

He’s an exorcist now, but the Order still keeps him on a leash. No missions without Yukio, or Shura, or even Lightning. No missions without a watchdog ready to tear out his throat if he makes the wrong move.

He’s an exorcist now, but they still take on missions as a group more often than not, the entire ex-cram students tackling lower-level demons together as Yukio, or another exorcist higher up on the chain of order than them, keeps an eye on things.  
  
He’s a Knight now and nothing has changed, Rin thinks a tad bitterly when they take on a demon with green, green eyes.  
  
“Be careful!” Yukio warns, alarmed and backing up. Rin is already rushing forward, though, frustration at its breaking point.  
  
The demon smiles, deep and wide, and he reaches out, clawed fingers poised, but Shima knocks Rin out of the way, Suguro’s words “ _Are you fucking stupid?!_ ” ringing in his ears.  
  
Dark green claws sink into Shima instead of Rin, and then the demon is gone. There's just Rin and Shima, Suguro’s harsh words bleeding into his consciousness as Yukio hauls him up by the shirt and shakes him.  
  
Then Shima stands up, shirt torn by claws, but skin completely intact, and Yukio curses, pushes Rin away from himself, and starts barking orders.  
  
“I hate you, you know,” Shima says serenely, eyes on Suguro. “I fucking hate you, so much. You and dad and Juuzou and Kinzou and _fucking Takezou_. Fucking Myou Dha.” He leans into Suguro’s space, leers at the other boy, and licks his lips. Suguro’s finger is on the trigger, his bazooka by his side. “I love you,” he says, eyes so very green. Green irises, green sclera. “I love you, Bon.” Shima drags a green, green claw down Suguro’s throat, licks his lips again at the fine trickle of blood. “Won’t you consider dying for me?” He breathes in Suguro and breathes out poison. “ _Won’t you_?”  
  
Suguro, who has always been quick with his words, quick with his fatal verses, has nothing to say as the demon possessing his friend whispers venomous truths into his ear.  
  
Rin’s blood runs cold.

 

 

 

* * *

 

“How does that even work?” Rin says when he visits Shima in the infirmary. A few bruised ribs and scratches, but he’ll heal in time, the doctor had said after a cursory inspection. The only medicine Shima needs is rest. “You love Suguro and you hate him?”

He’s supposed to be saying sorry. He even brought apology cookies.  
  
Shima seems to take it all in stride. He laughs hard enough that he doubles over in pain, hand pressed against his ribs. “Well, you know how it works. Love and hate, opposite sides of the same coin.” When Rin continues to stare at him in disbelief, Shima grins, dark and heavy. “Do you know what Myou Dha was like? Do you know what growing up was like?” He opens the container of cookies, picks one out and bites into it, makes inappropriate groans of satisfaction. “These are unholy,” he says emphatically. “These are going to completely undo the last few months of training. Thanks.”  
  
Rin makes an impatient noise.  
  
“Take-nii died, so I had to live for him. Because I was born into the Shima family, I had to protect Bon.” He stuffs another cookie in his mouth. “And then, Yamantaka appeared one day, as if he was always with me, a part of me. If I was born into any other exorcist family, I would have been able to live for myself. Imagine knowing you were more powerful than anyone your age, than maybe even your older brother, and being told you had to be subservient to a bossy know-it-all.”  
  
Yukio had always been the good child, Rin the problem child. He knows what it feels like to be the one who always messes up, the one who is never good enough. But that isn’t what Shima feels, isn’t what Shima experienced. For the first time, Rin thinks he is finally learning who Shima is and not who he pretends to be.  
  
“The spy gig was like a miracle, a gift from the devil,” Shima says, waggling his eyebrows meaningfully. “Finally, I got to stretch my wings, to get out from under Myou Dha and its traditions and responsibilities. And, maybe, it meant I could find a place that was for me.” Rin doesn’t comment on the implication of the words, doesn’t leap from his seat and shake the truth, the complete truth, from Shima’s stupid pink head.  
  
“But then… But then Bon called out to me.” There’s affection in those words, and Rin’s ears itch. “He called out to me, and I wanted to turn back.” Shima smiles, and it feels heavier than any other version of it Rin has seen. It looks burdened by self-deprecation, by the irony of it all. “I want to be by his side, I want him by mine. I’d do anything to tether him to me,” he says with conviction, the unspoken words ringing in the air.  
  
“You’re trash,” Rin says, echoing old words. “Actual trash.”  
  
Shima laughs. “I know, right?”  
  
He holds out a peace-offering cookie. “But that’s normal, right? Hating your most important thing?”  
  
  
  
_Bon is my god._  
  
  
  
Rin accepts the cookie.  
  
Rin doesn’t say anything. 

 

 

 

* * *

 

She smiles so prettily, the ghost, so soft and gentle like the petals of a blooming flower. She coaxes them just as sweetly as her smile, beckons them forth with delicate, pale hands outstretched.  
  
Rin thinks there was a time when she would have had him dancing in the palm of her hand with but a crook of a finger. Perhaps before Shiemi, the first girl to hold a monopoly over his heart, and perhaps after Shiemi, when he had finally let go of the tangled knot of his wants and accepted that what she wanted from him was something he would always be willing to give her, but what he wanted was something she could not give in return. It had been easy to brush the tumult of his emotions aside with a mission ready and waiting in the wings for him— save Shura, bring her back home, safe, alive— but once he had found himself alone with time for everything to catch up, it had overwhelmed him. The cold acceptance of something he had always known, the hurt of crushed, foolish hopes, the wounded pride, and the persistent surge of affection for Shiemi, so kind and forthright, beautiful— it had crushed him, like a wave battering him down, down, down. It would have been easy to use this ghost as a stopgap measure, a placeholder for the space in his heart he had thought would always be occupied by Shiemi.  
  
She smiles, and Suguro calls him stupid, reminds him that this ghost has murdered half a dozen men, had sunk sharp nails into them, had pulled their hearts from them, plucked like ripe peaches. Suguro calls him stupid, and Rin feels more centered than he has in months, looks at the other boy— classmate, comrade, friend— and thinks, _Oh_.  
  
“Snap out of it, Okumura!”  
  
Rin smiles too, because he gets it now.  
  
“Don’t worry, princess. A true knight doesn’t give his heart away willy-nilly. Cheap tricks don’t work on me.”  
  
He looks at the ghost, sees all her beauty, and doesn’t see Shiemi, doesn’t see lost loves and broken promises like the other men had. He sees her beauty, and sees nothing he wants to chase after, nothing worth yearning for.  
  
“ _Shut up!_ Aren’t you done with that tired princess crap yet?”  
  
_No_ , Rin thinks as he grins at Suguro. “Just sit tight, princess. You find the right fatal verse and I’ll play nice with the pretty lady until you’re ready.” He stretches languidly, makes a show of cracking his neck and fingers before pulling out Kurikara. _White knights_ , he reminds himself, _are the ones who save the princesses_.

 

 

 

* * *

 

“Suguro’s the princess,” he says, winded from laughter. “You’re such an _asshole_.”  
  
“I’m not a good enough man to help my rival,” Shima says pleasantly, rubbing the bruised spot on his shoulder where Rin had playfully socked him after returning from the ghost case he had with Suguro and Yukio.  
  
“You say rival, but we both know you’re still gunning for Kamiki.”  
  
“A guy can chase after Buddha all he wants, but Buddha will always be unattainable," Shima intones sagely. It doesn't suit him, at all. "Besides, I like her. Each time she looks at me like I’m chewed gum that got stuck to the bottom of her shoe, my heart flutters.”  
  
“I thought Buddhism was all about attaining Nirvana,” Rin says drily. “Also, you’re a complete pervert.”  
  
“Yeah, Nirvana, not Buddha.” Shima shrugs and sips his soda. “Besides, Myou Dha was less Buddhist precepts and more absolute exorcism.”  
  
Rin gives Shima the hairy eyeball. “You totally fell asleep during most of the lessons.”  
  
“Without a doubt.”  
  
“What now?” Rin asks after a moment, searching for answers in the bottom of his can.  
  
“We both play the part of knight,” Shima says, “see which one of us has less regrets in the end.”  
  
“Suguro’s allergic to love.” Rin doesn't mean to sound as defeated as he does.  
  
“Yeah, maybe a little.” There’s a strained quality to his words, a bit strangled and rough. “He apologized to us, you know. He said he wanted to start over. Instead of the _kaname_ Juu-nii called him, he wants to be…” Shima laughs, eyes wet. “Instead of trying to force us together, he wants to rebuild the temple so we have a place to return to.”

 _  
  
Is this your new ambition, Suguro?_  
  
  
  
He bumps Shima’s shoulder with his own. “Congratulations. Sounds like you have what you’ve always wanted. Suguro will always wait for you.”  
  
Rin thinks Shima might be crying.

 

 

 

* * *

 

“Suguro,” he begins, shoulders squared and head held high.  
  
“No,” Suguro says, and walks in the other direction.  
  
That is attempt number one.  
  
Attempt number six is Rin furious and demanding, “Why are you dodging what I have to say?!”  
  
Attempt number six is Suguro saying, with all the severity of a sword to the gut, “I don’t have time for distractions,” and making a quick escape for the nearest exit.  
  
After the tenth try, Rin turns to Konekomaru for help.   
  
“Bon’s very serious,” the other boy says.  
  
Of course Suguro is serious. He wouldn’t be Suguro if he wasn’t. Rin thinks he’ll go bald from frustration.  
  
Konekomaru makes sympathetic noises. He fails to look the part.

 

 

 

* * *

 

“Maybe you should start with tokens of affection,” Shiemi suggests.  
  
Rin turns the clip he had received from Suguro, months and months and months ago, in his hands. He can’t think of anything but hair clips and how this gift is turning into something akin to a lady’s favor.  
  
“I make him lunch most Sundays.”  
  
Shiemi smiles. The entire room brightens visibly.  
  
“No one can resist your food, Rin!”  
  
It’s great having Shiemi as a friend, he decides. He tells her so.  
  
She is resplendent with joy. 

 

 

 

* * *

 

Rin is helping Suguro clean up after Lightning again, because the older man is disgusting and can’t look after himself like a proper adult. The bonus of having Suguro cornered, unable to flee without abandoning his duties, is not lost on him. He spends the first seven minutes reviewing his speech in his head. Everything is planned out and perfect. He opens his mouth, but Suguro gets there first.

“Do you know what _kotodama_ means?”

There’s no way that he does, at least not to Suguro’s prissy standards of excellence, but he hazards an approximation. “Word magic? Souls?”

Suguro is sorting through tomes again. Most of them are probably cursed, Rin thinks sourly, and Lightning has no sense of responsibility and isn’t here in case things go south. “It means words have power.” Thoughtfully, Suguro runs a thumb across the edge of an old book, barely held together by its aged spine. Suguro’s such a nerd, and maybe he has a thing for nerds, Rin muses as his heart feels full just watching the other boy treat each book like a treasure, gently and tenderly. “It means words have the power to bless and curse.

“Have you ever heard stories of people pulling off unbelievable feats because they kept repeating to themselves that they could?”

Rin considers it for all of five seconds. “Yeah, like when I’m so sure I’ll get ten points but instead get twelve?”

Suguro makes an utterly disgusted noise in the back of his throat. Rin grins. “Imagine a man running away from danger. There’s a canyon; if he makes it to the other side, he’s safe. If he fails, he falls. He dies. The canyon is too wide for any human to clear in one leap. He tells himself he will make it, he repeats it to himself as he psyches himself up, as he takes the running start, as he finally pushes off from the edge. And he makes it, against all probability.” Carefully, Suguro shelves one book, runs a fond, longing hand along the spine before picking up the next.

“I’ve been thinking,” Suguro continues. “That’s the basis of fatal verses and summoning, isn’t it?

“It’s how Lightning can tailor fatal verses for demons without any, how any of them work at all. Demons who could survive fifty meter drops and blades through the head die because of words said in the right order? Demons with more power in their left pinky than a human could ever hope to achieve after a lifetime of training, serving whoever summons them?”

It’s possible, probable, even, but Rin doesn’t follow the conversation, doesn’t understand why Suguro would bring this up after weeks of playing chicken with Rin.

“Fatal verses work because there is an expectation for them to. Summonings work because there is an expectation they will.” After finishing with the books, he starts on picking up the stray clothes. Rin pulls a face when Suguro picks up Lightning’s underwear from under a pile of knickknacks. “Of course, there’s a certain degree of talent to it. Compatibility? Moriyama doesn’t really use a summoning chant, does she? She just calls for her familiar.”

It’s true.

“My point is, words hold power.”

Suguro’s back is faced towards him. Rin needs with everything that he is for Suguro to turn around. Whatever the other boy has to say, the constriction in his chest tells him, it won’t be what he wants to hear. So he should at least have the decency to look Rin in the eye when he does so. 

Suguro doesn’t turn around.  
  
“That’s why, Okumura… Whatever you have to say, don’t.”

_Don’t seize any more power from me. Don’t gain any more over me.  
  
  
_

The entire speech Rin had spent nights writing and rewriting on the ceiling of his room dies in his mouth without ever seeing the light of day.

 

 

 

* * *

 

Kamiki looks at Rin like he’s too stupid to live, equal parts derision and pity on her face.

Rin feels small.

“Just get it out, you idiot. Hold that ex-chicken head down if you have to and say what you have to say.”

Rin is small; a tiny, terrified boy. He’s not as strong as Kamiki; he wants to point out that she has never said anything, vindictive because he can be. He’s small and petty and scared, afraid of ruining whatever he has with Suguro.

“Be honest,” Kamiki says firmly, eyes a little soft. “You’ll never be able to let it go otherwise.”

She speaks from experience, out of kindness. Rin starts to speak, too, has words forming on the tip of his tongue.

“I liked you,” she says before his words can properly form, and maybe what Suguro had said before is true. _Kotodama_ , the power of words. Because she says the words, and it becomes the truth, the uneasiness that had poisoned the air between them is gone. Kamiki looks lighter than she ever has.

“Yeah,” he says, something tight and dark in him unfurling, loosening. Unknotting. "I liked Shiemi.”

Kamiki snorts and rolls her eyes. “Of course. Everyone could see it. You’re kind of painfully obvious.”

“Yeah, I am.”

He squeezes the clip in his pocket. 

 

 

 

* * *

 

If Suguro Ryuuji had a fatal verse, Rin thinks it’d be this.  
  
The other boy looks at him with wide eyes, throat clicking as he struggles to string words together. He looks terrified, like a man faced with impending doom, not five small words.  
  
_I love you, Suguro Ryuuji._  
  
Rin digs blunt fingernails into the palm of his hand, does the right thing and doesn’t reach out for Suguro, stands his ground and bites his lip instead of calling out, instead of _entreating_. He gives Suguro space, doesn’t crowd the other boy when all he wants to do is shorten the distance, to ground himself with Suguro, to lace their fingers together and _make_ Suguro meet his gaze. Because he won’t let Suguro laugh off his words, even when Suguro runs a hand through dark, short-cropped hair, eyes darting as his mind races for _something_ , _anything_.  
  
“Suguro,” he says, control slipping as he makes an aborted attempt to reach out, to comfort and support, when he realizes there are tears at the corner of Suguro’s eyes, as genuine confusion creeps into his Kyoto drawl when he whispers, “Okumura— _why?_ ”  
  
_Why._  
  
It’s such a loaded word. Why now? Why Suguro? Why this?  
  
Why?  
  
Rin wants to know, too.  
  
All he can think of are small things, meaningless things. He thinks of the way the line of Suguro’s jaw looks under the golden glow of the setting sun, and the way his hand itches to hold it, to run a thumb over the patch of dark scruff of the other boy’s goatee. Perhaps it’s the way he no longer looks over to see if Suguro is there, just _knows_ when he is and when he’s not. Or, he muses as he finally closes the gap, it’s the way Suguro looks at him now, and how it hurts more than when Shiemi had softly said, “But I’m too young for love.” The ache settles so deeply beneath his ribcage, makes a home in it, and Rin can only accept it, because he has never expected his affections returned. He used to dream of a happily ever after with Shiemi, back when just thinking of her meant a warm flush up his neck, but he has no such illusion with Suguro. He dreams of what they are now, of the comfortable silences and how everything just falls naturally into place, how even their arguments feel like coming home because it’s _them,_ real and honest.  
  
Suguro shakes his head when Rin’s hand finds the taller boy’s neck, and he gently pulls Suguro down until Rin can rest his forehead against the other’s. “Nothing has to change,” he says as calmly as he can. He focuses on the way the cool autumn air fills him with each soothing inhale and not the way the ache has managed to coalesce into a heavy weight just beneath his sternum. “We won’t change. I just,” another breath— focus, he tells himself, focus, “I just wanted— needed you to know.”  
  
He holds his gaze until Suguro finally looks away from a spot over Rin’s left shoulder and meets his eyes. Slowly, he brings up his other hand, and feels relief wash over him when Suguro doesn’t jerk back when he cradles a cheek. He smiles and slides his eyes closed, takes another breath and another, waits until the pulse thrumming under the skin of Suguro’s throat matches the beat of his heart. When he opens his eyes, he sees the deep furrows of Suguro’s drawn brow, the angry flush slowly fading from his high cheekbones, the way dark lashes cast a shadow against tan skin, and thinks, _beautiful_.  
  
“Nothing has to change, Suguro.”  
  
“You're a fucking liar,” Suguro accuses, eyes still closed, the rise and fall of his chest still perfectly synched with Rin’s.  
  
“Yeah, I know,” he agrees easily, and closes his eyes again.  

 

 

 

* * *

  

“I don’t have time for romance,” Suguro says.  
  
He has a mission. He has an ambition to find, a dream to reach.  
  
“Of course,” Rin says.  
  
_I can wait._  

 

* * *

  
  
Suguro is only wild when it comes to his temper and his passion.  
  
When it comes to love, Rin learns, Suguro’s a coward, and not at all wild.  
  
Rin loves Suguro anyways.

 

 

 

 


End file.
